​Godless Britain? UK 6th from last in global belief poll

Britain is one of the least religious countries in the world, coming sixth from bottom in a global study of belief carried out across 65 countries.

Win/Gallup International
polling suggested that over 50 percent of Britons did not believe
in any religion, 13 percent were committed atheists and that the
rest were unsure how to define their beliefs.

Only 30 percent said they were religious.

Thailand was found to be the most religious country, with 94
percent of those asked claiming to belong to a religious group.

In Armenia and Morocco, 93 percent of those asked said they were
religious.

In continental terms, Western Europe and Oceania were less
religious than Africa and the Americas.

China was one of the most atheist countries, with only 6 percent
of people adhering to a religion and 61 percent stating their
commitment to atheism. Only 13 percent of Japanese people said
that they subscribed to a religion.

Despite religious belief taking a knock in some countries, the
study found that far from being on the wane, there are nearly
twice as many believers as non-believers in the nations surveyed.

Win/Gallup International president Jean-Marc Leger told the
Guardian: “Religion continues to dominate our everyday lives
and we see that the total number of people who consider
themselves to be religious is actually relatively high.”

The study broadly corroborates the findings of a poll by the
Times newspaper, published in February, which suggested that
religiosity in Britain is dying as almost one in five British
people now identifies themselves as atheist.

It found that 19 percent identify themselves as atheists, 7
percent as “agnostic” and 3 percent as
“humanist.”

In contrast, 49 percent identified themselves as Christian, while
42 percent said they had “no religion” they directly identified
with.

Additionally, the poll found David Cameron’s Anglican faith made
little to no impact on the way voters viewed him, with only 12
percent of identifying Christians claiming the prime minister’s
faith improved their opinion of him.

The global WIN/Gallup investigation also identified a number of
compelling global trends, finding that religious beliefs were
more common among people who were younger, poorer and less
educated.

Housewives were found to be one of the most intensely religious
groups, arguably lending some weight to the famous description of
religion by socialist revolutionary Karl Marx: "Religion is
the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless
world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of
the people."